The Bengaluru police have arrested a 25-year-old techie for creating a fake Instagram page and harassing his former colleague.

The accused has been identified as Nitin Achari, a native of North Karnataka’s Yemalur, who has been working at a tech company in Bengaluru. He and the victim were good friends from the time the latter had joined the company. For personal reasons, the victim had changed her job. On learning that she had become friends with another man at her new workplace, Nitin allegedly began to call and harass the woman on the phone.

In an effort to avoid his harassment, the woman began avoiding Nitin’s calls, which reportedly irked him even more.

He then took it one step further and allegedly created a fake Instagram account under the woman’s name and had taken her pictures from her social media page. He also reportedly shared messages between the two on the account.

The woman had reportedly been his junior colleague at the private software company.

According to reports, on discovering the Instagram handle, the woman confronted Nitin, who told her that he did not post the messages or photos, and even pretended to be more concerned. He had even allegedly told her to file a police complaint to trace the “real culprit”.

The woman then filed a complaint with the cybercrime police, who were able to trace the page back to Nitin. He was subsequently arrested and remanded to judicial custody.

The accused hails from a small village in Honnavar taluk in North Karnataka and was residing in Bengaluru’s Bellandur area.

Earlier in June, a mobile shop technician was arrested after he was found to be harassing women on social media using one of 13 different online identities he had created.